The last year-plus has been a tumultuous time in the world. As announced last week, we're changing the norms of the USPolitics megathreads, and that includes less space for parody songs and similar stuff. Instead, folks can put that stuff here. Have you made some art, music, etc. (silly or serious), inspired by current events (from anywhere in the world, not just the US)? Show us!
posted by LobsterMitten
on Dec 4, 2017 -
7 comments

Hey folks, big discussion time. We're going to be making some changes on how U.S. political discussion plays out on MetaFilter, to try and make sure it remains available as a useful resource in a way that isn't as unsustainable as the current approach has been. I’ll lay out some concrete steps we’re taking, and some general thoughts, below. This is detailed but important and I appreciate you taking the time to read through it. [more inside]
posted by cortex
on Nov 28, 2017 -
447 comments

In potus45 threads, moderators seem to be ratcheting up their opposition to discussing topics that have been previously discussed, even if those topics are evolving, and even when participants in those discussions find the continued discussion valuable. Previous MeTas seemed to lean in the direction of spinoff threads for certain aspects of US politics, and folks are asking for a spinoff thread now for the Al Franken situation, but the mods seem to be against that, based on the idea that we're rehashing/retreading previous discussions. This same logic has been applied to other sub-topics in the past, e.g. anything that touches on the 2016 primaries, and it makes a certain amount of sense. Still, I find it unsatisfying when these discussions are closed off when (a) the underlying story is evolving, (b) other community members are making compelling points, and (c) the discussion isn't terribly shouty/fighty -- criteria I think all apply to the discussion so far re: Franken. What say you, MeFites? [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu
on Nov 20, 2017 -
281 comments

Okay, someone made a (possibly throwaway) comment in one of the POTUS45 threads that it would be interesting to see how the comments/content of the threads had changed since the election.
I got my teeth into that, and after some playing with the HTML of the threads with VBA and Access, I now have a headache. As well as that I've got a database with 48 threads, 139,882 comments (including the posts themselves as a comment), 9,230,306 words, 2,193,898 favourites and 46,692 links.
Some charts and stats inside. Let me know if there's other stuff you're interested in. [more inside]
posted by MattWPBS
on Sep 1, 2017 -
109 comments

Taking advantage of what actually appears to be a slow news day (?!), I re-vamped the Election Thread Guide on the MeFi wiki to be a new "U.S. Politics Thread Reference" guide. I've enjoyed (as much as one can enjoy) the politics megathreads, but there certainly is a learning curve. Please feel free to add your own content directly or, if you'd like, add info/suggestions here and I can work it in. [more inside]
posted by whitewall
on Aug 7, 2017 -
42 comments

There's a small discussion at the end of the May 30th U.S. politics thread (starting here) about when the megathreads should be "rolled over" into a new thread. Let's talk about that, and whatever else folks want to talk about with respect to the megathreads. [more inside]
posted by lalex
on Jun 6, 2017 -
273 comments

In the interest of not cluttering up the massive political thread with expressions of disbelief, let's have a Metatalk thread about how unbelievable all this shit is. [more inside]
posted by bq
on May 26, 2017 -
362 comments

The biggest change in the way that mefites participate on the blue in years has been the rise of US politics megathreads. We have had several discussions of the qualitative impact of them, but it occurred to me that it might be useful to dig into the infodump and see what quantitative picture might emerge. I think my findings are worth sharing - while a quantitative analysis on its own can't tell us whether the megathreads are a good thing or not, there are several negative trends regarding community engagement and participation that are happening in close concurrency with the rise of the megathreads. [more inside]
posted by strangely stunted trees
on Mar 27, 2017 -
466 comments

In one of the December election threads, someone made a passing reference to a Pogues song, and I can't find it. If memory serves, the comment didn't mention them by name, but said something to the effect of "I never thought I'd be singing xxxxx, but it's relevant again." The only things I can recall were that it was from one of the 1980s albums and it wasn't "Fairytale of New York". If anyone can help jog my memory, I'd be much obliged. Thanks!
posted by pxe2000
on Feb 20, 2017 -
18 comments

We've gone back and forth in the election threads for over a year now.
And plenty MeTa ink has already been spilled alternately bemoaning and re-litigating names for his Trumpiness, how annoying nicknames are, why some people want them, etc. etc.
It's been recently argued that his name is already pretty silly for the English.
From Lord Dampnut to [], this topic seems done to death.
Can we just settle this and put it in the damn wiki? Has it already been? Isn't this a better place than the unwieldy election threads?
posted by aspersioncast
on Feb 18, 2017 -
123 comments

Based on a lot of discussion over the last year and especially the last couple months about how the site handles the visibility and organization of posts about contemporary US politics, we've put together a new sidebar tool that you can test out starting today. [more inside]
posted by cortex
on Feb 6, 2017 -
126 comments

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